District is Sued for Blocking Mother’s Reading From Bible

A Pennsylvania school district has been sued for prohibiting a mother from reading from the Bible during “Me Week” in her kindergartner’s class.

The May 2 lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, contends that school officials in the Marple Newtown district violated Donna Busch’s constitutional rights to freedom of speech and equal protection of the law. The Rutherford Institute, based in Charlottesville, Va., is representing Ms. Busch in the case.

The lawsuit says Thomas Cook, the principal of Culbertson Elementary School in Newtown Square, Pa., informed Ms. Busch last fall that she could not read from the Bible in class during the week her son Wesley was the featured student because it was against the law and would violate the separation of church and state.

Robert A. Mesaros, the superintendent of the 3,400-student district, said last week in a statement posted on the district’s Web site that the suit was “baseless” and “nothing more than an attempt to make headlines.”